Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, and Warwickshire (Wars) arethree of the four counties shown above in blue. They aresoutheast of Wales and northwest of London.

John Prickett, c1630-1690

Whether one Howell Prickett was the father of ''our'' John Prickett, as some Prickett familyhistorians have maintained, is by no means certain. But a Howell Prickatt (spelling of names inthe 17th century need not be taken seriously, a man could spell his name in all sorts of ways

without batting an eye) did have a son named John who was christened in St. Catherine'sChurch, Gloucester, England, on 30 December 1617. That John, however, died on 14 May1618. I have yet to see any documentary proof that Howell had another son named John, butit is possible.

There is evidence of a Howell-Prickettconnection that supports the idea that a Howell Prickett could have beenthe father of a John. There seems tohave been a Catherine Howell,daughter of one Thomas, who marrieda John Prickett. Catherine andThomas may have named a son“Howell Prickett” and he in turn mayhave named two of his own sons John.

Whether a John, son of Howell, is"ours" and whether all the eventsdescribed below happened to thisparticular John Prickett (i.e., ourancestor John), is uncertain, but both

chronology and geography make it seem possible, or even likely, that they did.

Family Group 7: DNA testing shows that John's line descendants are closely related to Pricketts in Gloucestershireand Warwickshire

Tewkesbury is in the center of the map, about 11miles northeast of Gloucester and southeast ofEvesham, and just over 100 miles northwest of

London.

According to the Pritchard, Prickett, etc., DNAproject director, Thomas Hutchinson, DNAtest results show a match between John'sdescendant and three testers in the UK, all ofwhom come from the Oxfordshire and War-wickshire area, which is close to Gloucester,England, where Howell lived, and the supposedexit point of the Pricketts to New Jersey.

The first definite information I have foundabout the John Prickett who could be ourancestor concerns two events that occurred inthe mid-1650s, one in October of either 1655or 1656 and one in February 1656. TheFebruary event took place in Tewkesbury,some eleven miles northeast of Gloucester. George Fox, founder of the Society of Friends(Quakers) had begun preaching openly in thelate 1640s, and John must have been amonghis early followers. On the 24th of February of

1656 John and a number of others were committed to prison after being taken from a Quakermeeting “because they refused to give Sureties for their good Behaviour.” (The Friends'meeting in Tewkesbury had been organized perhaps just a year before, when George Fox helda “great meeting” there.)

And in October of either 1655 or 1656 John was put in stocks in Evesham, in Worcestershire(about 13 miles northeast of Tewkesbury), along with others for attending another Quakermeeting.

A few years later, he may have gone to Virginia: a John Prickettwas transported to Lancaster County in February 1662, but if thiswas “our John, “ he did not stay there long. Our John apparentlycontinued to be a faithful Quaker. At any rate, in the mid 1660s,he was in London working as a cordwainer (“a shoemaker/cobbler who makes fine soft leather shoes and other luxuryfootwear articles”) and still active in Friends’ meetings.(There is a Cordwainer ward of the City of London, near St.Sepulchre’s Church, which is historically where most cordwainerslived and worked. And this is where "John Prickett late of St.Sepulchre's cordwainer" made his home.) In February 1666 he --and others -- were sentenced to be transported to Jamaica forseven years “for having attended an unlawful assembly undercolour of exercising religion &c. after two previous convictions ofthe same offence.”

John must have avoided transportation because four yearslater, on 24 or 27 July 1670 he lost an unnamed child inPeel, Middlesex (i.e.London) and two years after that, on15 May 1672, his wife, whose given name is unknown,gave birth to a son named Josiah in London. And anothertwo years later, on 2 May 1674, they had another sonwhom they named Zachariah.

Perhaps excitement created by the Great Plague of London(1665-1666) and the Great Fire of London* in early

September 1666 distracted the authorities. The raging Plague was the last major epidemic ofthe bubonic scourge to occur in England; It is said to have killed about 100,000 people (some15% of London's population). The fire consumed more than 13,000 houses and almost 90churches, including St. Paul's Cathedral.) It had started in a bake house on Pudding Lane,perhaps within a mile or so of John’s dwelling place. In fact, St. Sepulchre's was destroyed inthe fire, and it seems likely that John's home was also consumed by the flames.

It is thought -- but there is no firm proof --that, about a decade and a half later,between 1677 and 1682, John migrated withhis family and other English Quakers to whatbecame Burlington County, New Jersey. Ithas been said that the family arrived on theAmity in 1681, but there is no extant proof.

The first documentary evidence we have oftheir presence in New Jersey is a Quaker

wedding that Josiah and his wife hosted on 6 Jul 1693 at their home in Burlington. The firstappearance of Zachariah is in the Burlington Court Book as a defendant on 8 August 1698 (in acase styled "Elizabeth Kilcop Plaintiff versus Zechariah Pricket Defendant." (Zachariah's arrestwas withdrawn, and Zachariah himself went on to prosper.)

Although John seems to have had a hard life in England and disappears from the records, thedescendants of his New Jersey sons spread all across the United States, and many of them went on to live interesting and successful lives.

* For an especially graphic description of the fire, seehttp://www.luminarium.org/encyclopedia/greatfire.htm.** This picture of the fire is from http://www.prisonersofeternity.co.uk/about-us/.

== SOURCES ==

[Anon.], "Notes on the Prichett or Prickett Family of NJ," Pennsylvania Magazine of History andBiography, vol. 18, p512. (The 1894 Pennsylvania Magazine Of History and Biography stated, ina short section of information about the "Prichett or Prickett Family of New Jersey": "Thisfamily may be descended from John Prickett, apparently of Gloucestershire, a persecutedFriend, in 1660 (see Besse's 'Sufferings.')

Besse, Joseph 1683?-1757. Collection of the sufferings of the People called Quakers' (2 vols.,London: L. Hinde, 1753.)

Boles, Harold W. and David B. Ellis Ancestors: Some immigrants, colonists, and pioneers. (Pub:Harold W. Boles, 1994).

BMDregisters.co.uk. Database and images. The Official Non-Conformist and Non-ParochialBMDs Service. http://www.bmdregisters.co.uk/: 2012. Repository: UK National Archives online.

England and Wales - Non-Conformist Record Indexes (RG4-8) Repository: FamilySearch.org.

House of Lords, Journal Volume 4:', Journal of the House of Lords: 17 July 1641, volume 4:1629-42 (1767-1830), pp. 317-318.http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=35651&strquery=prickett British History Online)

Hutchinson, Tom, adminstrator. Pritchard DNA Project ...includes Prichard, Pritchett, Prickettand all variations. Email to Patricia Prickett Hickin, 20 September 2015.

Jeaffreson, John Cordy, ed., ''Middlesex county records:'' Volume 3: 1625-67 (1888British History Online).

United Kingdom. "The National Archives." Database. United Kingdom. The NationalArchives. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/default.htm